QA问答：作为一名作家，你得到过的最好的建议是什么？
What is the best piece of advice you''ve ever been given as a writer?
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“学会用主动语态写作。”
正文翻译
What is the best piece of advice you've ever been given as a writer?
作为一名作家，你得到过的最好的建议是什么？
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Vary your sentence structure. At first I had no idea what this advice (from an English professor) even meant. Aren’t all sentences basically alike: subject, verb, predicate? So I picked up a copy of Moby Dick and began diagramming Melville’s sentences.
Sentence 1: “Call me Ishmael.” That’s an imperative. Interesting. Had I ever used an imperative in any of my writings, ever? Nope. OK, I had already learned something.
I got to the third page before I saw any repetition of sentence structure. I had never previously realized what it was about Melville’s writing that made it so enjoyable, but now I had noticed at least one thing. Wow.
改变你的句子结构。
起初，我不知道这个（来自一位英语教授的）建议到底是什么意思。难道不是所有的句子都差不多吗？主语、动词、谓语？于是我拿出一本《白鲸》，开始研究梅尔维尔的句子。
第一句：“叫我以实玛利”
这是祈使句。有趣。我曾经在我的作品中用过祈使句吗？没有。好吧，我已经学到了一点东西。
我读到第三页，才发现句子结构很少有重复。我以前从未注意到，到底是什么让梅尔维尔的写作变得如此有趣，现在我至少注意到了一件。哇！
There are many other tricks to writing. Look up “figures of speech” and ask yourself, “How many do I use in a typical page?” Of course, writing fiction and writing non-fiction are different—but the key concept is make your writing varied.
Note that I began this little response using an imperative.
从那以后，我养成了改变句子结构的本能。这样做会让写作变得更有趣，这样就少了一些无聊。
写作还有很多其他技巧。去看看《修辞手法》，问问自己：“这些典型的手法我用了多少？”
当然，写小说和非小说是不同的。关键的概念是要让你的写作手法多样化。
请注意，我是从使用祈使句这个小改变开始的。
A few pieces of good advice I’ve received. Hope it helps other aspiring writers!:
Write everyday — but to a specific word count… even if your writing sucks. Write and DON’T edit. Just write, everyday. I get up at 5am to do this, and always try and hit 2000 words. When I first started, I gave myself a pat on the back and let myself stop at 1,500… then I stopped doing this. I realized those last 500 words were better than anything else I’d done. I’d been robbing myself of my potential every time I stopped short. You can set any limit you want… but I picked 2000 because I read Stephen King’s book called, ‘On Writing’… not sure if he’s a good or bad example, I just used his wordcount because I didn’t know what was normal. :)
我有好几条收到过的建议，希望可以帮助到其他有抱负的作家：
1、每天都要写，规定一个特定的字数……就算你写得很糟糕也要写到这个字数。写，不要重复修改。每天都写。
我早上5点起床开始写作，总是试图先写2000个单词。当我第一次开始开始这么做时，我写了1500个字，然后拍了拍自己的后背……我停了下来。
我突然感觉，我的最后500个单词可能比我前面写的所有单词都要好。每次我停下来，我就是在剥夺自己的潜力。
你可以设置任何你想要的限制字数……我的选择是2000，因为我读了斯蒂芬金的《写作这回事》……我也不确定他是个好例子还是个坏例子，我只是用了他也使用的字数，因为我不知道正常的字数是多少。
2、相信你的读者：我有一个坏习惯，不停的提醒我的读者，发生过什么。因为我不相信他们还记得。事实上，对于那些无论如何都体会不到你写作的微妙之处的人来说，你提醒他也得不到，但对那些能够体会到的人，让他们惊讶于和你一起产生的共鸣。
3、永远不要：他或她说，或者，他轻声说，他说得很快。相反，要想办法让他们在行为和行动中表现出来。让他们捏紧指关节，让他们握拳。基本上什么都可以，而不是给自己一个简单的出路。这会迫使你运用你所有的感官来创造一个场景。
4、避免白墙综合症。我有一个可怕的习惯，就是只为两个角色的互动创造地方，我的“白色房间”。每个地方在你的角色到达之前都已经存在，在你的人物离开之后依然存在。想想你的角色是如何改变环境、打破事物、清理事物的。重点是——场景是另一个角色……你需要的东西，“展示，不要叙述”，才能让它活起来。
The man pulled out a razor, using its sharp edge to slice his own tongue.
Blood spurted, staining bone white teeth red. Nothing said, razor — but the dripping from his mouth definitely screamed, crazy.
This isn’t meant to be great (5 seconds of blurted writing)… but it sets off two distinctly different styles. The first tells you everything you need to know about the razor (it’s sharp).
The second let’s your mind create the scene.
If you can do, ‘show, don’t tell’ well, it can be more evocative because it uses our imagination to complete the picture, and we’re MUCH better at filling in the unsaid with our own expectations.
5、很多人说：“展示，不要叙述”。非常同意这一点。想想这两句：
1）男人拿出一把剃刀，用锋利的刀刃割了自己的舌头。
2）鲜血喷涌而出，把白色的牙齿染成红色。没有说任何关于剃刀的信息——但从他嘴角滴落的鲜血，绝对让人尖叫、疯狂。
这只是花了5秒写出来的，并不特别好……但他引发了两种截然不同的风格。第一个直接告诉你剃刀很锋利。
第二个，直接在你的脑海中创造场景，
如果你能做到：“展示，不要叙述”，那么故事会变得更具有吸引力，因为他使用了我们的想象力来完成画面，而我们更擅于用自己的期望来填充未表达的内容。
Do not read your work once you have written it for 2–3 days. Immerse yourself in the feeling of having written something epic.
Go back to it afterwards and make the changes.
A story will progress only if you feel good about it in your guts.
You know who told me this?
你完成写作的2-3天内，不要读你的作品，让自己沉浸在写了史诗般的东西的感觉中。
然后再回去做修改。
一个故事只有在你内心感觉良好的时候才会有进展。
你知道是谁告诉我的吗？
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Jefferey Archer.
Yes, I had the privilege of meeting him in Bangalore.
I even gave him a copy of my book and he promised he will not be able to read it and laughed.
I am just happy he has a copy of it.
杰弗里·阿切尔。
是的，我有幸在班加罗尔见到他。
我甚至给了他一本我的书，他保证他不会读，然后笑了。
我很高兴他有了一个我小说的副本。
“Learn to write in the active voice.”
I had given a book manuscxt to an editor friend to review and give me an open and frank, critical analysis.
He made numerous notations, but one in particular he made a point of sitting me down and explaining. He urged me to learn how to write in the active voice. Here are a few examples:
“学会用主动语态写作。”
我把一本书稿交给一位编辑朋友审阅，并给我一个坦率、批判性的分析。
他做了很多记号，但其中一个特别的记号，他让我坐下，要和我谈谈。他敦促我学习如何用积极的声音写作。以下是几个示例：
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
“We are called by God to be Christ's witnesses.” becomes… “God calls us to be Christ's witnesses.”
“All the work was done by me.” becomes… “I did all the work.”
1、因为荣誉感，我们被迫成为好公民——要改成——荣誉感驱使我们成为好公民。
2、我们被上帝召唤，成为了基督的见证人——要改成——上帝召唤我们为基督作证。
3、所有的工作都是我做的——要改成——我做了所有工作。
Seek to write in the active voice. You will not regret it. Your writing style will become more powerful and you will say more in fewer words.
Active voice. Try it.
你明白了吗。我花了几年时间才掌握了主动语态的力量，但一旦我掌握了这个概念，它就彻底改变了我的写作。
尝试用主动语态书写。你不会后悔的。你的写作风格会变得更加有力，你会用更少的语言表达更多的信息。
主动语态。试试看。
Be concise.
due to the fact that → because
in spite of the fact that → Although
In order to → to
dexe the word ‘both’
Use verbs to replace phrases or idioms. Not every one knows about English idioms.
Try to dismantle long and complex sentences into shorter and simpler ones. I once read a book filled with >100-word sentences; I threw it away before I made it to Chapter 2. Reading should be enjoyable and smooth, not meandering.
First person is always more clear and straightforward than passive voice and helps you understand who did what better.
My boss always banters that his main job as a professor is deleting words. When you write a 5000-word paper, make it 3500 or even shorter; if you can’t, that means you don’t really understand what you wrote.
简明扼要。
1、因为事实上→ 因为
2、尽管事实上→ 虽然
3、为了→ 到
4、删除单词“both”
5、用动词代替短语或习语。不是每个人都知道英语习语。
6、试着把长而复杂的句子，拆成短而简单的句子。我曾经读过一本书，里面有100多个单词的句子；我在进入第二章之前就把它扔掉了。阅读应该是愉快和流畅的，而不是曲折的。
7、第一人称总是比被动语态更清晰、更直白，能帮助你了解谁做得更好。
我的老板总是开玩笑说，他作为教授的主要工作就是删除单词。当你写一篇5000字的论文时，把它缩短到3500字甚至更短；如果你不能，那就意味着你没有真正理解你写的东西。
Bury your pains.
In Italian, there is a concept called sprezzatura.
Originating from the 15th century, it means "a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it."
Sprezzatura is succinctly defined as “studied carelessness.” Personally, I prefer “masterful nonchalance.”
In other words, whatever work you put out to the public, it must look effortless to the reader even if you put an immense amount of time, sweat and tears into it.
埋葬你的痛苦。
在意大利语中，有一个概念叫做sprezzatura。
起源于15世纪，它的意思是：某种程度的冷漠，隐藏一切的艺术，让人们所做、所说的一切看起来毫不费力，从不用多想。
Sprezzatura 被人简单的定义为“刻意的粗心大意” ，就我个人而言，我更喜欢表达为“娴熟的漠不关心”。
换言之，无论你发表了什么作品，即使你为作品投入了大量的时间、汗水和眼泪，对读者来说，它都必须是看起来毫不费力的。
They will never know how many drafts you rewrote.
They will never know how much frustration, anger and hopelessness you felt as you trudged on the page.
All they know is the piece you’ve put in front of them - polished, well-written, well-edited.
Nothing less, nothing more.
Take infinite pains to make something that looks effortless. - Michelangelo
It is the last gift you can give to your audience.
他们永远不会知道你划掉了多少单词。
他们永远不会知道你重写了多少草稿。
他们永远不会知道当你在页面上艰难前行时，你有多么沮丧、愤怒和绝望。
他们所知道的只是你放在他们面前的那篇文章——精雕细琢，文笔优美，编辑精良。
多一分嫌多，少一分嫌少。
尽最大努力做出看起来毫不费力的东西。——米开朗基罗
这是你能给观众的最后一份礼物。
Never stop writing. Never stop reading.
It’s the best advice you can give any writer. You cannot improve if you don’t keep at it and if you don’t read other writers you have no notion of what good or bad looks like… so how can you even guess that your work has any quality at all? I think it was Oscar Wilde who said, “Writing is easy. You just sit in front of the typewriter until beads of blood form on your forehead.” Not everyone can write - though many people think that they can.
永远不要停止写作。永远不要停止阅读。
这是你能给任何作家的最好建议。如果你不坚持下去，你就无法进步，如果你不阅读其他作家的作品，你就不知道什么是好的或坏的……那么你怎么能猜到你的作品有任何质量问题呢？我想是奥斯卡·王尔德说过，“写作很容易。你只需坐在打字机前，直到额头上形成血珠。”不是每个人都会写作，尽管很多人认为他们会。
When you write something, you already know what it is about. You know what is coming, and what you want to convey. So it's common for you to feel that the point has been conveyed even when it's not. But the reader has no idea about what's coming. So the amount of details you would need to get the picture in your head is not always adequate for a third person to understand what just happened. This will make the reader unable to connect with the emotion you thought to convey.
I was asked to always proofread whatever I write keeping this in mind.
但你想写一些东西时，你自己已经知道了很多关于它的东西，你知道接下来会发生什么，过去发生了什么，你想传达什么。因此，有些东西你还没有传达给读者，你也会感觉你已经传达了，这会导致读者根本不知道接下来会发生什么。你需要很多细节才能让你的脑海中形成一幅画面，但这并不是总能让第三个人理解这个画面中到底发生了什么，这会使读者无法与你想表达的情感联系起来。
我经常被要求校对我写的任何东西，记住这一点。
When you'll write from your heart, it'll touch many hearts.
This is my own experience. Be true with your writing. Do justice with your writing by expressing your true thoughts.
当你用心写作时，它会触动许多人的心。
这是我自己的经历。写作要真实。通过表达你的真实想法来公正地对待你的写作。
The best piece of advice that a friend gave me, though he was not a writer and not a reader much, but certainly that put me on my track of writing during my initial days.
“When you read your stuff (writing), you should be enjoying your stuff. Or else others will not like it.”
一位朋友给了我最好的建议，尽管他不是作家，也不太喜欢读书，但在我最初开始的日子里，让我走上了写作的道路。
“当你阅读你的东西（写作）时，你应该能够享受你的东西。否则别人也不会喜欢它。”
BREVITY: the quality of expressing much in few words.
My father gave me this advice when I was cultivating the habit of writing in 1999–2000.
Before I received the advice, I would often write long, complex sentences. My writing lacked coherence and I used superfluous words.
At the time, I didn’t even know what “brevity” meant. My vocabulary was limited. Ever since he explained its meaning, this advice has stuck with me.
I consider this as the best piece of advice I have ever received.
简洁：用很少的语言表达很多东西的品质。
1999-2000年，当我养成写作习惯时，父亲给了我这个建议。
在我收到建议之前，我经常会写长而复杂的句子。我的写作缺乏连贯性，我用了多余的词。
当时，我甚至不知道“简洁”是什么意思。我的词汇量有限。自从他解释了它的含义后，我就一直坚持这个建议。
我认为这是我收到的最好的建议。
Unnecessary words, syllables, and letters do not make you sound smart. They make you sound like you are trying to sound smart.
Many of the writing assignments young students are given encourage them to write for tonnage rather than clarity.
They're told to write a 300 word paper, so they use “is not” rather than “isn't,” because that puts them one word closer to being done.
They are told to write a story using twelve vocabulary words, so they squeeze a horse into a story just so they can use “equine” in a sentence.
They are told that they can't use informal language, so they use convoluted language on the assumption that making their writing difficult to understand will show how smart they are.
不必要的单词、音节和字母，不会让你听起来很聪明。它们让你听起来像是在努力让自己听起来很聪明。
许多给年轻学生的写作作业都鼓励他们写得冗长，而不是为了表达清晰。
1、他们被告知，要写一篇300字的作文，所以他们用“不是”而不用“否”，因为这会让他们离完成工作更近了一个字。
2、他们被告知，要用12个词汇写一个故事，所以他们把“一只狗”塞进一个故事中，这样他们就可以在一个句子中使用“犬”。
3、他们被告知，不能使用非正式语言，所以他们使用复杂的语言，这一切都让他们的写作变得难以理解，只是为了显得他们有多聪明。
If a one syllable word communicates an idea clearly, don't use a three syllable word.
Use “use” rather than utilizing “utilize.”
If you can say it clearly in one word, don't use three.
Use “to” rather than “in order to,” because they mean the exact same thing.
If a you can say it using common words that your reader will readily understand, say it that way.
老师们有充分的理由给学生布置如上所述的作业，但这种行为往往让学生的写作变得不太好。
如果一个单音节单词，能够清楚地表达了一个想法，就不要使用三音节单词。
可以用“用”，就不要用“使用”。
如果你能用一个词说清楚，不要用三个词。
用“TO” 不要用“IN ORDER TO” ，因为它们的意思完全相同。
如果你能用你的读者更容易理解的常用词来表达，那就用常用词。
"Don't fight the format".
This came from my screenwriting professor, and he grilled me out of my resistance to the dry format of screenwriting.
Having written a lot of prose, it was so tasteless for me at first, but it was a lesson badly needed. The punishment and the work was well worth it. It was like new muscles were working in my head as I subjected myself to first not falter, then walk, then walk confidently, and finally run.
It helped me as a storyteller and a narrator, and brought brevity and economy to my word usage. It also made me a whole lot more supple as a writer, who could now write in more than one format.
“不要反对格式”。
这是我的编剧教授说的，他让我摆脱了对枯燥的编剧格式的抵制。
我写了很多平凡的文，起初对我而言很乏味，但这是非常必要的一课。惩罚和努力都是值得的。我让自己先不要犹豫，然后开始走路，然后开始自信的走路，最后开始跑了起来，我的脑袋里好像长了新的肌肉。
它帮助我成为了一个讲故事的人，一个叙述者，让我在使用单词的时候更简洁和经济。这也让我作为一个作家变得更加灵活，现在可以用多种格式写作。
At some point, you have to put it down and walk away. That was advice given me by the late, great Aaron Allston. He was referring both to stopping the process of editing and rewriting, and to sometimes recognizing that no matter how much you may like an idea or how good it obxtively is, if no one's biting, put it down and move on to another project.
在某个时刻，你必须放下它，走开。这是伟大的已故的阿伦·奥尔斯顿给我的建议。他指的是停止编辑和重写的过程，有时候你会意识到：无论你多么喜欢一个想法，或者客观上想法有多么好，如果你做不到，就把它放下，继续进行另一个项目。
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To not be swayed by the opinions of unsolicited criticism, and to write what I know.
不要被不请自来的批评意见所左右。还有：写你知道的。